ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday promised a $7.5 billion assistance to Pakistan over the next three years (2020-24) under its next Country Assistance Strategy.

This was the crux of a two-day visit of ADB’s high-level delegation to Islamabad led by its Vice President Shixin Chen. The delegation, including Adviser Ehsan Khan and Country Director for Pakistan Ms. Xiaohong Yang, also held meetings with Prime Minister Imran Khan and his ministers.

The Ministry of Planning and Development in an announcement said the ADB had promised an indicative assistance of $7.5bn over the next three years. It said the Minister for Planning Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar welcomed “the ADB’s indicative assistance of $7.5bn over the next three years for Pakistan” and hoped the ADB portfolio may be expanded to include other priority areas.

The minister said the bank’s Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for 2020-24 is under preparation and it may also consider supporting new areas including Clean and Green Pakistan Initiative, information and communications technology, higher education, housing sector, water supply for Islamabad and improving governance structures for achieving sustained development. He hoped that CPS (2020-24) will be finalised soon in consultation with all stakeholders.

The meeting decided to improve the disbursement process for early implementation of ongoing projects. It was apprised that the ADB’s ongoing portfolio (loans and grants) amounted to $6.15bn against 50 projects out of which $1.98bn had been disbursed.

It was agreed that the review of ongoing ADB portfolio should be held every month with relevant stakeholders to fast-track the process.

He said the efforts were under way to expedite the implementation of ADB-funded projects by streamlining the process to achieve country’s development strategy and socio-economic goals.

The delegation’s meeting with the PM Imran Khan was also attended by Minister for Economic Affairs Muhammad Hamad Azhar and Adviser to PM on Finance Abdul Hafeez Sheikh.

The ADB vice president briefed the PM regarding short, medium and long-term support to Pakistan in various sectors of the economy, particularly trade and competitiveness. He discussed various proposals to enhance institutional capacity of the government to deliver on its development and economic stability agenda.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2019